U.S. Judge Sides With the Selling of Pre-owned Digital Music

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aracheb

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money corrupted croocks, wanting to stop the progress of innovation..

it sick me to read this kind of article.

Good thing ReDigi won the case.

Good thing the Plaintiff lose the case also
 

rad666

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@thisisaname: "If I buy it I should be able to sell it!"

Not according to the major game companies...
 

jay_l_a

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>>If I buy it I should be able to sell it!

Exactly. But once you're dealing with digital downloads, are you sure you bought it, or did you just rent it?

That's where they will get you....
 

bustapr

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i think people here arent getting the big problem here. the problem is this question, "how the hell do you sell used MP3s?" its practically selling piracy with no royalties. think well about it before thumbing me down to hell. another question, "what the hell is a used mp3/preowned digital music?"

the owners(musicians and distributors) of the songs dont get any of the money and they are selling it to you. Its just as I said, selling pirated music and they are ripping you a new one. first, anyone who falls for this is stupid, and this service should not even exist.
 

raringcoder

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[citation][nom]jay_l_a[/nom]>>If I buy it I should be able to sell it!Exactly. But once you're dealing with digital downloads, are you sure you bought it, or did you just rent it?That's where they will get you....[/citation]
For lots of cloud hosted content, you don't buy a copy, you buy right of access to a copy you don't own. Most of the time ownership versus access is synonymous because once access has been paid for, you can demand that access.

One of the reasons I still buy books and not bytes.
 

zak_mckraken

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[citation][nom]jay_l_a[/nom]>>If I buy it I should be able to sell it!Exactly. But once you're dealing with digital downloads, are you sure you bought it, or did you just rent it?That's where they will get you....[/citation]
When I click on a big red "buy it now" button, it's not "rent it now". They can't entice you into buying something to later tell you you actually just rented it.
 

rantoc

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[citation][nom]JohnnyLucky[/nom]I don't know which is more interesting the actual article or the member comments.Imagine not being able to sell your used car![/citation]


Some people are just stupid, others are paid by PR firms (more PR employees prowl the web forums than you think, there been research on the subject and the last article i read used simple ip matching from a list obtained from a respected site and the results were scary and the worst part is the big question, how many PR employees aren't using known pr firm ip ranges).

Always take the comments with not one but ten grains of salts, especially those that is very friendly towards the corporations / organizations at the expense of rights. A good typical example would be bustapr's statement up above claiming a piece of purchased music would be piracy if its ever sold and thats by itself is ridiculous!
 

lamorpa

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You bought a license. Since when did ignorance of the contract you agreed to enter into make you not subject to it's terms? If you made a mistake and did not read the terms, you screwed up. It may be unfair, but it's not illegal. Don't purchase music without understanding the way in which your copy is licensed.
 

bustapr

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[citation][nom]rantoc[/nom]Some people are just stupid, others are paid by PR firms (more PR employees prowl the web forums than you think, there been research on the subject and the last article i read used simple ip matching from a list obtained from a respected site and the results were scary and the worst part is the big question, how many PR employees aren't using known pr firm ip ranges).Always take the comments with not one but ten grains of salts, especially those that is very friendly towards the corporations / organizations at the expense of rights. A good typical example would be bustapr's statement up above claiming a piece of purchased music would be piracy if its ever sold and thats by itself is ridiculous![/citation]
i wasnt claiming that. Would you mind explaining what exactly is a preowned digital song?
 

lamorpa

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Always take the comments with not one but ten grains of salts, especially those that are very friendly towards the users at the expense of rights. A good typical example would be rantoc's statement up above claiming a piece of licensed music would be equal to full ownership and able to be sold and that by itself is ridiculous!
 

alidan

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[citation][nom]bustapr[/nom]i think people here arent getting the big problem here. the problem is this question, "how the hell do you sell used MP3s?" its practically selling piracy with no royalties. think well about it before thumbing me down to hell. another question, "what the hell is a used mp3/preowned digital music?"the owners(musicians and distributors) of the songs dont get any of the money and they are selling it to you. Its just as I said, selling pirated music and they are ripping you a new one. first, anyone who falls for this is stupid, and this service should not even exist.[/citation]

you make a very intresting point. how do they know its not pirated to begin with... how do they know i dont have a coppy, and so forth...

with games, if there was a way to input your cd key, and have it taken off your account, and moved to another person, i could see a pre owned type of thing working there, but music... especially in a drm free formats and drm free offerings, yea... thats defiantly hard.
 

CaedenV

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[citation][nom]Vorador2[/nom]EULAs aren't enforceable in court.[/citation]
Well, when you break MS's EULA and they sue you I would love to see you win with that argument. The EULA states the boundaries of how you use a product or service, and if you break that agreement then the issuing company has every right to brick your device (like with consoles), or to sue you to oblivion.
The issue at hand is a question of what you own. When you buy a CD you own the physical disc, you do not own the content on the disc to do with as you please. It is technically illegal (though not enforceable) to copy that music, rip it to other devices, or whatever else because you purchased the CD, not the music, and not the copyright to the music. When purchasing an MP3 the question is if you have purchased the music, or the right to listen to said music, and if so; how many devices can you copy it to at any particular point in time? And let's say you own the MP3, does that give you resale rights? For example, when you buy software you own the copy of software. However, with much software (like the retail version of Windows for example) the software is tied to the person it was sold to, and if you sell that computer then you technically have to remove said software. On the other hand if you purchase the OEM version of the same software (in this case Windows) then it is tied to the machine, and while you can sell the machine and keep the OS on it, you cannot (technically) put the OS on any other computer, and you definitely cannot resell the OS to anyone else as a stand-alone product.
All of this is clearly stated in the EULA, but the problem with music is that these types of situations were not even thought of when the product was released, and so the courts have to decide which way is the most fair to the consumer, while not creating a fiscal burden on the music companies (lol, as if they are facing any financial hardships right now), and what most lines up with the original agreement between the content providers and the consumer. It is an amazingly complex situation (too complex in my opinion), and not one where a judge should pick one side or the other out of hand.
 

g-thor

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@bustapr
"how the hell do you sell used MP3s?"

Since I don't usually buy music off the internet, I can't speak for how the EULAs are today. The last time I bought, it was licensed as if it was a CD, with rights to burn up to 3 CDs and have it on up to 5 digital players. It included the right to give a burned CD to anyone I wanted to - I know because I asked the download provider if that was allowed. And that is the way I perceive a digital download. The main difference between a digital download and the same song on a CD is the delivery medium (yes, the quality on CD is better too).

I will assume you don't think it's wrong for someone to sell a CD they no longer want. However, the same rules apply for it to be a legal sale. If I ripped a CD to my computer then sell the CD, I am obliged to remove the ripped files. Since I do respect copyright, I have done that. The same with software - when I gave a game I no longer played to a friend, I deleted the game from my computer. That's how it's supposed to work. And that is how you sell a used MP3 or other digital medium.

One could will argue that since some people don't respect copyright then you can't let anybody "sell" their digital copy. My response to that argument is, some people use cars to commit crimes, so nobody should have a car. Some people use their executive position in a company to embezzle funds, so nobody should be an executive. I could go on & on.

Laws are not made for the law abiding person, but for the unlawful, and the laws to deal with copyright infringement are already in place. Here is a company that claims it can facilitate the exchange of digitally encoded music in a way that conforms to the law & respects the copyright. If that's the case then they should be allowed to conduct their business. I would guess from the article that the judge is giving them the benefit of the doubt on that. That remains to be established, but it looks good at the moment. if it's true then I wish them luck.
 
G

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There are very few places that allow contracts of adhesion to stick unaltered (which covers EULAs) in fact in California they are completely invalid regardless. Other places arguments such as the company accepting your money prior to you're accepting the Eula, or not providing sufficient ability to object invalidate the EULA. In short though any time a company sells you a product and presents the terms after the fact without a clear method to reject the terms and recover any losses, the EULA is illegal and inadmissible. An example would be if you bought software from a store that doesn't allow you to return opened software and the EULA was no accessible without opening it.
 

ahnilated

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It is technically illegal (though not enforceable) to copy that music, rip it to other devices, or whatever else because you purchased the CD, not the music, and not the copyright to the music.

Actually you need to read fair use. You can make copies of music for your own personal use without any risk of being sued (under current laws).
 
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